The film's framing device involves Cheka General Yevgraf Zhivago (Alec Guinness)
searching for the illegitimate
child of his half brother, poet and doctor Yuri Zhivago (Omar Sharif), and his
mistress Larissa ("Lara") Antipova (Julie Christie). Yevgraf believes a
young woman named Tonya Komarovskaya (Rita Tushingham) working on a dam
project may be his niece. Around 1956, Yevgraf narrates the story
for her, periodically appearing in it, though he rarely interacts
with any other characters in the flashbacks.

Yevgraf tells Tonya the story of her father's life. Yuri
Zhivago's father abandoned the family and Yuri's mother died when
he was a child, leaving him only a balalaika. Left destitute, Yuri was taken in
by his mother's friends, the Gromekos — Alexander (Ralph
Richardson) and Anna (Siobhán McKenna)—and their daughter
Tonya (Geraldine Chaplin). Gromeko was a
retired medical professor living in Moscow. As a result, Zhivago was able to enter
medical school, studying under Professor Boris Kurt (Geoffrey Keen).
Though he is already a poet of some renown, Yuri did not think that
he could support a family as a poet and decided to become a doctor.
Lara, meanwhile, lives with her mother (Adrienne Corri), a dressmaker who is
being "advised" by Victor Komarovsky (Rod Steiger), a corrupt attorney, who had
also been the friend and business partner of Zhivago's father.

Lara became engaged to Pasha Antipov (Tom Courtenay). Originally an idealistic
social democrat (Lara teasingly called him
"an awful prig"), Pasha drifted into Left-wing extremism after
being wounded by a saber-wielding Cossack during a peaceful
protest. This left him with a conspicuous scar across his cheek
which would mark him for life. That same evening, Komarovsky took
Lara to a posh restaurant and then seduced her.

Lara became more deeply involved with Komarovsky, until her
mother finally discovered their affair. As a result of the
discovery, Lara's mother tries to commit suicide by swallowing iodine. Komarovsky discovered her and summoned
help from Kurt and his assistant Zhivago, who thus encountered Lara
for the first time.

When Pasha, now a dedicated Bolshevik, informed Komarovsky of his
intentions to marry Lara, Komarovsky was not amused. He tried to
dissuade Lara from marrying Pasha, and then violently raped her. In
revenge, Lara took a pistol she had been concealing for Pasha,
tracked Komarovsky down to a Christmas party and shot him in the arm.
Although the diners wished to notify the police, Kamarovsky
insisted that no action be taken against Lara, who was escorted out
by Pasha. Although enraged and devastated by Lara's infidelity,
Pasha could not bring himself to strike her. In the aftermath, they
married and had a daughter, Katya Antipova.

The movie then skips ahead to the outbreak of World War I. Yevgraf
Zhivago enlisted, intending to subvert the Imperial Russian Army for Lenin's
Bolsheviks. Yuri, who was by this time married to Tonya Gromeko,
became a battlefield doctor along the Eastern Front. Leaving his
wife and her daughter, Pasha Antipov joined a volunteer regiment
("Happy men don't volunteer," Yevgraf is heard to say in
voice-over), becoming one of the few officers the common soldiers
trusted. However, he was declared missing in action and Lara enlisted
as a nurse in order to search for him. Meanwhile, the February
Revolution broke out and the soldiers began to kill their
officers and desert en masse.

Traveling with a group of deserters, Lara again encountered
Zhivago, who was with a column of replacement troops marching to
the front. Zhivago enlisted the help of Lara to tend to the
wounded. The two managed a makeshift hospital in a nearby dacha for the remainder of the war
and are parted after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.

After the war, Yuri returned to Moscow, learned that his mother-in-law had
died and that the Gromeko's house had been divided into tenements by the new Soviet Government. Yuri met
his son Sasha for the first time since the boy was an infant, and
resumed his old job at the local hospital. Furious that his family
lacked firewood for the family stove, one night Yuri stole wood
from a fence, where he is spotted by his half-brother, Yevgraf,
who was working for the CHEKA. Yevgraf followed him home,
identified himself, and informed Zhivago that his poems have been
condemned by Sovietcensors as antagonistic to communism. After explaining
that this put their whole family at risk for collective punishment, Yevgraf
helped arrange for rail passes for their transport to the Gromeko
estate at Varykino, in the Ural Mountains.

Zhivago, Tonya, Sasha, and Alexander boarded a heavily-guarded
cattle train which contained a detachment of labor conscripts bound
for the GULAG — including the hot-headed dissident intellectual,
Kostoyed Amoursky (Klaus Kinski) — and a large contingent of
Red
Guards. At one point, the train passed through the village of
Mink, which has been shelled by Red forces commanded by People's
Commissar Strelnikov.

While the Urals train is stopped, Zhivago wandered away from the
train, listened to the sound of a waterfall, and stumbled across
Strelnikov's armored train sitting on a hidden siding. Believing
that Yuri was about to assassinate the Commissar, the Red Guards
arrested him and brought him before Strelnikov. To his amazement,
Yuri immediately recognized the Commissar as Pasha Antipov. After a
tense conversation, Strelnikov informed Yuri that Lara was alive in
the town of Yuriatin — which was then occupied by the anti-communistWhite Army. He then
allowed Zhivago to return to his family. A casual comment by the
guard who took Zhivago back to his train revealed that most people
interrogated by Strelnikov ended up being shot.

Zhivago's family arrived at Varykino, only to learn that their
house had been boarded up with a sign indicating confiscation by
the Soviet State, a.k.a. "the people". Out of fear of being
executed as "counter-revolutionaries", they desisted
from breaking into their own house and they decided to occupy the
smaller guest cottage. The family lived a mundane life until the
next spring, when Zhivago went into Yuriatin and discovered that
Lara was still living there with Katya, and working as a librarian.
The two re-acquainted themselves and surrendered to their longtime
feelings, beginning an extra-marital affair. Zhivago felt deeply
ashamed and was torn between Tonya and Lara, until Tonya became
pregnant. Therefore, Yuri travelled to Yuriatin and broke off his
relationship with Lara, only to be abducted and conscripted into
service by communist partisans under Liberius (Gérard Tichy) while riding back to
Varykino.

After serving with the Partisans for nearly two years, Zhivago
deserted, only to learn that Tonya and the children had emigrated
to Paris as White
émigrés. He then walked through the snow to Lara's home at
Yuriatin, where the two lovers rekindled their relationship and
moved in together.

However, Komarovsky arrived one night and informed them that
they were being watched by the CHEKA, due to Lara's marriage to Commissar
Strelnikov, who had fallen from favor with the Soviet State.
Komarovsky offered Yuri and Lara his help in leaving Russia, but
they refused. Instead, they took Lara's daughter, Katya, to the
Varykino estate, which had been left open and was frozen inside.
Yuri began writing the "Lara" poems, which would later make him
famous but incur government displeasure.

Komarovsky reappeared and told Yuri that Strelnikov was arrested
and committed suicide while
being walked to his execution. Therefore, Lara was in immediate
danger, as she had only remained free to lure Strelnikov into the
open. Zhivago scoffed at this, but Komarovsky informed him that
Strelnikov had been arrested on the road only five miles from
Varykino. Yuri agreed to send Lara away with Komarovsky, who had
been appointed as Minister of Justice to the White government of
Baron Ungern von Sternberg in Mongolia. Refusing to leave with a man he
despised, Yuri remained behind.

Years later, Yuri returned destitute to Moscow, where Yevgraf
obtained him a hospital job and bought him some new clothes. While
riding a streetcar to his first day at work, Yuri
saw a woman whom he recognized as Lara. Forcing his way off the
tram, he ran after her, but suffered a fatal heart
attack before she saw or noticed him.

Although denied an official funeral by the Soviet State, Yuri's
poetry was already being published openly due to shifts in politics
and his funeral was well-attended. Among the mourners was Lara, who
was surprised and deeply saddened by her beloved's death. She
approached Yevgraf and informed him that she had given birth to
Yuri's daughter, but had become separated from her in the collapse
of the Baron's Government in Mongolia. After vainly looking over
hundreds of orphans with Yevgraf's help, Lara disappeared off the
street during Stalin's Great Purge. "Perhaps in a labor camp,"
recalled Yevgraf, "A nameless number, on a nameless list which was
later mislaid."

At the beginning of the film, Zhivago's mother died and he
inherited her balalaika.
His adoptive father informed him that his mother had a gift. The
theme of artistic talent is repeated throughout the film, as
Zhivago becomes a poet of great renown. At the end, set at a hydroelectric dam during the mid 1950s, Yevgraf is still uncertain
whether the young girl Tonya Komarovskaya is Yuri's and Lara's
daughter. The girl ends the meeting, denying that she is Yevgraf's
niece, and leaves with her live-in boyfriend, an engineer. While
walking away, the girl slings a balalaika over her shoulder, which
catches the eye of Yevgraf. He calls out to her, "Tonya, can you
play the balalaika?" Her boyfriend responds, "Can she play? She is
an artist!" Yevgraf smiles and comments, "Ah, then, it's a
gift."

Bob Shorrocks as Babe in Arms with large feet ( Noted member of
Royal Air Force rowing team )

Background

This famous film version by David Lean was created for various reasons.
Pasternak's novel had been an international success, and producer
Carlo Ponti was
interested in adapting it as a vehicle for his wife, Sophia Loren. Lean,
coming off the huge success of Lawrence of Arabia
(1962), wanted to make a more intimate, romantic film to balance
the action- and adventure-oriented tone of his previous film. One
of the first actors signed onboard was Omar Sharif, who had played Lawrence's
right-hand man Sherif Ali in Lawrence of Arabia. Sharif
loved the novel, and when he heard Lean was making a film
adaptation, he requested to be cast in the role of Pasha (which
ultimately went to Tom Courtenay). Sharif was quite
surprised when Lean suggested that he play Zhivago himself. (Peter O'Toole,
star of Lawrence of Arabia, was Lean's original choice for
Zhivago, but turned the part down; Max Von Sydow and Paul Newman were also
considered.) Rod
Steiger was cast as Komarovsky after Marlon Brando and James Mason turned the part down. Audrey Hepburn
was considered for Tonya, while Robert Bolt lobbied for Albert Finney to
play Pasha. Lean, however, was able to convince Ponti that Loren
was not right for the role of Lara, saying she was "too tall" (and
confiding in screenwriter Robert Bolt that he could not accept Loren
as a virgin for the early parts of the film), and Yvette Mimieux,
Sarah Miles and Jane Fonda were
considered for the role. Ultimately, Julie Christie was cast based on her
appearance in Billy Liar (1963), and the
recommendation of John
Ford, who directed her in Young Cassidy.

Since the book was banned in the Soviet Union, the movie was
filmed largely in Spain over ten
months,[1] with
the entire Moscow set being
built from scratch outside of Madrid. Most of the scenes covering Zhivago and
Lara's service in World War I were filmed in Soria, as was the Varykino estate. Due to
uncooperative weather in Spain, some of the winter sequences were
filmed in Finland, mostly
landscape scenes, and Yuri's escape from the Partisans. Winter
scenes of the family travelling to Yuriatin by rail were filmed in
Canada.

The "ice-palace" at Varykino was filmed in Soria as well, a
house filled with frozen beeswax. The charge of the Partisans across the
frozen lake was filmed in Spain as well; a cast iron sheet was
placed over a dried river-bed, and fake snow (mostly marble dust)
was added on top. Most of the winter scenes were filmed in warm
temperatures, sometimes of up to ninety degrees Fahrenheit.

Novel vs.
film

The film version of Doctor Zhivago is faithful to the
novel in a general sense; the basic plot remains the same, and the
story rarely deviates from the novel. However, many of the subplots
— particularly regarding the novel's historical/political facets —
were glossed over or edited down. Nearly half of the book's
characters were excised while others had their parts significantly
reduced (particularly Anna Gromeko, Pasha, and Liberius the
Partisan commander). Other characters (most notably Kuril, the
Bolshevik deserter, Commissar Razin, and Petya, the Varykino
groundskeeper) were created as an amalgamation of characters from
the book which had been excised from the film version. Many
reviewers have criticized the film in particular for reducing the
depiction of World War
I to a mere five minute narration sequence, and a similar
treatment of Zhivago's service with the Partisans, which took up
nearly seventy pages of the novel.

Most of these cuts were made or advocated by David Lean;
screenwriter Robert
Bolt's original screenplay dealt with the political/historical
aspects of the book in a more in-depth, if still abbreviated
manner. The scenes of Yuri's service with and escape from the
Partisans included scenes where Liberius executes mortally wounded
Partisans. Zhivago's horse, after the escape, is killed for food by
a group of homeless children, and Zhivago comes across a group of
children who are, it is hinted, cannibalizing the bodies of their
parents.

In the book, Pasha is a revolutionary dilettante and an
apolitical military leader; his ultimate fall from grace is because
he is not a true Bolshevik. In the film Bolt depicts him as an
activist dissenting from hardcore Bolshevik orthodoxy from the
beginning. He becomes a ruthless individual over the course of the
story. Bolt wanted to include the book's scene where the disgraced
Strelnikov returned to Varykino, met with Zhivago, and then
committed suicide; Lean, however, decided to cut it out, and
Strelnikov's fate was dealt with through dialogue spoken by
Komarovsky.

The present-day subplot involving Yevgraf's interview of The
Girl several decades after the story's main events was added as a
narration/framing device to help move along the story. Omar Sharif
later joked that it was added to reassure the audience that Yuri
and Lara would ultimately get together, even though the
audience would have to wait until two hours into the film for it to
happen.

Reception

Despite being a huge box office hit, Doctor Zhivago
also gained a staggering amount of criticism from reviewers,
largely for its length and depiction of the romance between Zhivago
and Lara. The preview cut, which ran to over 220 minutes, was
criticized for its length and poor pacing; Lean felt obliged to
remove up to 17 minutes of footage before the film's wide release,
and the missing footage has not been restored or located. Lean took
these criticisms very personally, and claimed at the time that he
would never make another film. However, numerous critics —
including Richard Schickel and Anna Lee —
defended Doctor Zhivago, and its box office success
allowed Lean to write off his critics. Lean made Ryan's
Daughter in 1970, then waited until 1984 to make his final
film, A Passage to India
(1984).

Miscellany

This film grossed more than all the other David Lean films put together.

Alec
Guinness and David
Lean quarreled frequently on the set. According to Guinness,
Lean was 'acting the part of a superstar director' and frequently
insulted Guinness' performance and him personally. This caused a
rift to develop between the two and they would not work again until
A
Passage to India almost twenty years later.

Most of the exteriors were completely built inside as well to
serve as interiors.

The scene where Zhivago and Lara meet amidst the army deserters
was a deliberate homage to King Vidor's The Big Parade, which Lean cited as
one of his favorite films.

David Lean avoided meeting any of the actors off the sets or
after the shoot during the filming. He said each actor had their
strong individual character and he did not want their characters to
influence his vision of them in the movie.

Contents

Characters

Yevgraf
Zhivago

In bourgeois terms it was a war between the Allies and Germany.
In Bolshevik terms it was a war between the Allied and German upper
classes - and which of them won was a matter of indifference.

on World War I

They [the warring powers] were shouting for victory all over
Europe--praying for victory to the same God. My task--the Party's
task--was to organize defeat. From defeat would spring the
Revolution...and the Revolution would be victory for us

on World War I

The party looked to the conscript peasants. Most of them were
in their first good pair of boots. When the boots wore out, they'd
be ready to listen. When the time came, I was able to take three
battalions with me out of the front lines; the best day's work I
ever did.

Happy men don't volunteer. They wait their turn, and thank god
if their age or work delays it.

Even Comrade Lenin underestimated both the anguish of that nine
hundred mile-long front, and our cursed capacity for
suffering.

I told myself it was beneath my dignity to arrest a man for
pilfering firewood. But nothing ordered by the party is beneath the
dignity of any man. And the party was right: one man desperate for
a bit of fuel is pathetic; five million people desperate for fuel
will destroy a city.

on seeing Zhivago pulling wood from a fence

That was the first time I ever saw my brother. But I knew him.
And I knew I would disobey the party. Perhaps it was the tie of
love between us, but I doubt it; we were only half-tied anyway, and
brothers will betray a brother. Indeed, as a policeman I would say
get hold of a man's brother and you're half-way home. Nor was it
admiration for a better man than me. I did admire him; but I didn't
think he was a better man. Besides, I've executed better men than
me with a small pistol.

She'd come to Moscow to look for her child. I helped her as
best I could, but I knew it was hopeless. I think I was a little in
love with her. One day she went away and didn't come back. She died
or vanished somewhere, in one of the Labour Camps. A nameless
number on a list that was afterwards mislaid. That was quite common
in those days.

of Lara

Viktor
Komarovsky

No doubt they'll sing in tune after the revolution...

breaking the uneasy silence in an expensive restaurant caused
by the singing of a Bolshevik demonstration on the street
outside

And don't delude yourself this was rape. That would flatter us
both.

after forcing himself on Lara

Yuri Andreievich, you spent two years with the partisans, fifth
division. You have no discharge so you are a deserter. Your family
in Paris is involved in a dangerous émigré organisation. Now all
these are technicalities. But your style of life; everything you
say and think, your published writings are all flagrantly
subversive. Your days are numbered unless I help you. Do you
want my help?

But don't you see her position? She's served her purpose. These
men who came with me today as an escort will come for her and the
child tomorrow as a firing squad! Now I know exactly what you think
of me, and why. But if you're not coming with me, she's not coming
with me. So are you coming with me? Do you accept the protection of
this ignoble Caliban on any terms that Caliban cares to make? Or is
your delicacy so exorbitant that you would sacrifice a woman and a
child to it?

We're all made of the same clay, you know.

Pasha Antipov /
Strelnikov

There'll be no more peaceful demonstrations. There were women
and children, Lara, and they rode them down. Starving women asking
for bread. And up on Tamskaya Avenue the pigs were eating and
drinking and dancing.

You put your knife with a fork and a spoon and it looks quite
innocuous. Perhaps you travel with a wife and child for the same
reason.

while interrogating Zhivago

I shouldn't admire it now. I should find it absurdly personal.
Don't you agree? Feelings, insights, affections... it's suddenly
trivial now. You don't agree; you're wrong. The personal life is
dead in Russia. History has killed it. [...] The private
life is dead - for a man with any manhood.

after telling Zhivago that he used to admire his poetry

Amourski

Long Live Anarchy! Lickspittle! Bureaucrat!

I am a free man, Lickspittle, and there's nothing you can do
about it. I am the only free man on this train. The rest of you are
cattle!

Gromeko

A body, styling itself the Yuriatin Committee of Revolutionary
Justice, has expropriated my house. In the name of the people. Very
well. I'm one of the people too![He picks up a shovel and makes to force his way in.]

They've shot the Czar, and all his family. Oh, that's a savage
deed.

Dialogue

Engineer: If they were to give me two more
excavators, I'd be a year ahead with the plan by now.

Komarovsky: Pavel Pavlovich; my chief
impression - and I mean no offence - is that you're very
young.

Pasha Antipov: Monsieur Komarovsky; I hope I
don't offend you. Do people improve with age?

Komarovsky: They grow a little more
tolerant.

Pasha Antipov: Because they have more to
tolerate in themselves. If people don't marry young, what do they
bring to their marriage?

Komarovsky: A little experience.

Komarovsky: [speaking of Pasha
Antipov] Lara, I am determined to save you from a dreadful
error. There are two kinds of men, and only two, and that young man
is one kind. He is high-minded. He is pure. He is the kind of man
that the world pretends to look up to and in fact despises. He is
the kind of man who breeds unhappiness; particularly in women. Now,
do you understand?

Lara: No.

Komarovsky: I think you do. There's another
kind. Not high-minded. Not pure. But alive. Now that your taste at
this time should incline towards the juvenile is understandable.
But for you to marry that boy would be a disaster. Because there's
two kinds of women. [Lara puts her hands to her ears; he
snatches them away] There are two kinds of women and you - as
we well know - are not the first kind. [Lara slaps him. He
slaps her back, harder] You, my dear, are a slut.

Lara: I am not!

Komarovsky: We'll see.

[the camera shows a group of dejected-looking Russian
soldiers in a trench, staring out across a snowy no-man's land
during World War I as Yevgraf narrates]

Yevgraf: "By the second winter of the war, the
boots had worn out... but the line still held. Their great coats
fell to pieces on their backs. Their rations were irregular. Half
of them went into action without arms, led by men they didn't
trust."

Officer: [leaps up on top of trench with a
saber drawn] Come on, you bastards!

[the Russian soldiers hesitantly follow Pasha as the German
guns open fire]

Pasha: Come on! Comrades! Earth-shakers!
SHOW THEM!!! CHARGE!

[Pasha is hit by several artillery explosions; the rest of
the Russian soldiers retreat back to their trench. Cut to Russian
soldiers beginning to leave their trenches and desert.]

Yevgraf: "At last, they did what all the
armies dreamed of doing - they began to go home. That was the
beginning of the Revolution."

Lara: You know, you often look at me as if you
knew me.

Yuri: I have seen you before. Four years ago.
Christmas Eve. [when Lara shot Komarovsky at a party which
Zhivago was attending]

Lara: Were you there? No wonder you look at
me. Did you know Viktor Komarovsky?

Yuri: Yes I did. That young man who took you
away -

Lara: My husband.

Yuri: Lot of courage. He made the rest of us
look very feeble. As a matter of fact, I thought you both did. Good
man to shoot at.

Lara: I'd give anything never to have met
him.

Sergei: This Lenin - will he be the new Czar,
then?

Kuril: Listen Daddy - no more Czars! No more
masters! Only workers in a workers' state! How about that?!

[Yevgraf meets Yuri and his family. Whilst Yevgraf appears
on the screen, we never hear his on-screen words but his voice-over
instead.]

Yevgraf: "I told them who I was. The old man
was hostile, the girl, cautious. My brother... seemed very pleased.
I think the girl was the only one who guessed at their
position."

Yuri: You're just as I imagined you. You're my
political conscience.

Yevgraf: "I asked him - hadn't he one of his
own? [laughs] And so he talked about the revolution."

Yuri: You lay life on a table and you cut out
all the tumours of injustice. Marvellous.

Yevgraf: "I told him if he felt like that he
should join the party."

Yuri: Ah, but cutting out the tumours of
injustice - that's a deep operation. Someone must keep life alive
while you do it. By living. Isn't that right?

Yevgraf: "I thought then it was wrong. He told
me what he thought about the party and I trembled for him. He
approved of us, but for reasons which were subtle, like his verse.
Approval such as his could vanish overnight. I told him so."

Yuri: Well, of course I can't approve this
evening something you may do tomorrow.

Yevgraf: "He was walking about with a noose
round his neck and didn't know. So I told him what I'd heard about
his poems."

Yuri: Not... liked? Not liked by whom? Why not
liked?

Yevgraf: "So I told him that."

Yuri: Do you think it's "personal,
petit-bourgeoise and self-indulgent"?

[On the screen, Yevgraf nods and says "yes".]

Yevgraf: "I lied. But he believed me, and it
struck me through to see that my opinion mattered. The girl knew
what it meant, what it was going to mean. They couldn't survive
what was coming in the city. I urged them to leave and live
obscurely somewhere in the country where they could keep themselves
alive."

Tonya: We have - used to have - an estate at
Varykino, near Yuriatin. People know us there.

Yevgraf: "He didn't resist. I offered to
obtain permits, passes, warrants; I told them what to take, and
what to leave behind. I had the impertinence to ask him for a
volume of his poems. And so we parted. I think I even told him that
we would meet again in better times... but perhaps I didn't."

[Zhivago has been captured by Partisans.]

Partisan Commander: Comrade Doctor, I need a
medical officer.

Zhivago: I'm sorry, I have a wife and child in
Varykino-

Commissar: And a mistress in Yuriatin.

[The commander laughs.]

Partisan Commander: Comrade Medical Officer,
we are Red Partisans, and we shoot deserters.

Komarovsky: No, not by association with you;
you're small fry. By association with Strelnikov.

Lara: I've never met Strelnikov.

Komarovsky: You're married to
Strelnikov! They know that.

Lara: I was married to Pasha Antipov.

Komarovsky: I understand, I understand... but
they don't.

[Komarovsky returns.]

Komarovsky: Strelnikov is dead.

Zhivago: What?!

Komarovsky: Spare me your expressions of
regret. He was a murderous neurotic of no use to anyone. Do you see
how this affects Larissa? You don't. You're a fool. She's
Strelnikov's wife. Why do you think they haven't arrested her – is
this the usual practice? Why do you think they had her watched at
Yuriatin? They were waiting for Strelnikov.

Zhivago: If they thought Strelnikov would come
running to his wife, they didn't know him...

Komarovsky: They knew him well enough. He was
only five miles from here when they caught him. He was arrested on
the open road. He didn't conceal his identity – indeed throughout
the interview he insisted they call him Pavel Antipov, which is his
right name, and refused to answer to the name Strelnikov. On his
way to execution he took a pistol from one of the guards and blew
his own brains out.

Zhivago: Oh my god... don't tell Lara
this.

Komarovsky: I think I know Lara at least as
well as you. But don't you see how this affects her position? She's
served her purpose. These men that came with me today as an escort
will come for her and the child tomorrow as a firing squad! Now, I
know exactly what you think of me, and why, but if
you're not coming with me she's not coming with
me. So – are you coming with me? Do you accept the
protection of this ignoble Caliban on any terms that Caliban cares
to make... or is your... delicacy... so exorbitant that you would
sacrifice a woman and a child to it?